


Quantum Fluctuations

by Ruchira



Series: Quantum Fluctuations [1]
Category: Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-30
Updated: 2020-09-30
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:13:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 21,207
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26737927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ruchira/pseuds/Ruchira
Summary: Lt. B'Elanna Torres wakes up one morning to find that nothing is making sense. In the course of the next several days, she gets many views of what her life could have been like, if one small decision at any point had been made differently. It's kinda AU, in that it has AU elements, but there's really nothing in the total story that wouldn't fit in canon (I know that didn't make any sense, but hopefully by the end you'll pick up on why I explained it that way).
Relationships: Tom Paris/B'Elanna Torres
Series: Quantum Fluctuations [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1946188
Comments: 19
Kudos: 26





	1. Chapter 1

Day 1 Morning

Lieutenant B'Elanna Torres groaned and buried her head in her pillow, trying to block out the sounds of the computer's alarm trying to coax her out of bed. She had had a restless night's sleep, due in no small part to Lt. Tom Paris and the argument they had gotten into the night before. It seemed like that was all they did anymore, argue. There were only bitter words where before there had been flirting, teasing—some sort of secret game the two of them had, a game in which they were the only two to know the rules or objective of the game. All of that was before Sakari, before that Vulcan-induced mating urge that caused her to literally throw herself at him. After that botched away mission, everything had changed between the two of them—the flirting was taken to an entirely new level, one that Torres had yet to figure out. It was if they were still playing with the same deck of cards, but the game had changed, and no one bothered to tell her the new rules. All of a sudden, things became almost serious between the two of them, and serious was one thing that B'Elanna was not ready for—especially with Tom Paris.

She shoved that thought out of her mind as she tried to remember what the fight the night before had been about. Had it been about anything, or were they just frustrated at everything around them and taking it out on each other? She had no idea, and found that she didn't really care. The rules of the game might have been changed on her, but she was starting to figure them out on her own—they would fight, go about half of the next duty shift not speaking to each other, and then one would offer a silent apology, and things would go back to normal. Well, normal for them. Now, if only she could remember whose turn it was to apologize…

She groaned again as the computer's voice got louder, informing her of the time and her duty schedule for that day. Why, if she wasn't on until Beta shift, did she even bother setting it? "Computer, stop alarm," she muttered into the room. Instantly, the reminders ceased, and she gave a slightly contented sigh as she rolled over in bed.

She literally jumped out of bed in surprise at what she faced there. Still sleeping, unperturbed by the computer's alarm, was a certain ship's pilot, his blond hair tousled, light eyelashes on his cheek, his face slightly scruffy and unshaven. For a second, B'Elanna was mesmerized by the sight of him sleeping. He looked peaceful, vulnerable, and almost innocent, a complete contradiction from the man who strutted around the ship, a mask carefully in place over his features, giving away no hint as to the emotion underneath.

With a shake of her head, she brought herself back to the issue at hand. Okay, she told herself, taking a deep breath. Tom Paris is in your bed, sleeping, and looking damn good while doing so… Wrong train of thought. Her eyes widened slightly as the logical part of her brain began to wake up. If Tom was in her bed, then they must have… She glanced down at herself, and breathed a slight sigh of relief when she discovered that she was, in fact, clothed. The tee-shirt she was wearing was much too large for her and must have been Tom's, but clothes were better than no clothes. She didn't know if that meant that they had sex the night before or not, but that thought didn't bring her any consolation. No matter what else they might have done in that bed, sleeping there together implied a certain intimacy that, last she checked, they didn't share. She didn't even know if she wanted to share that kind of intimacy with Tom Paris. She didn't know if she could trust him enough for that.

"Okay, enough." This time, she spoke the words to herself out loud. Standing by her bed while Paris was sleeping in it was not the time to be trying to figure out if she was ready for a relationship with him or not. Obviously, that decision had already been made, and when she began to realize that she had no recollection of making that decision, she began to get angry.

With a forceful tug, she pulled the covers off from Tom's sleeping form. "Wake up!" she demanded.

"Hmm?" he murmured, his blue eyes fluttering open slightly. He groaned slightly. "Come back to bed," he pleaded, his eyes again closed as he held out his arms for her. "We're not on duty until Beta shift today."

As tempting as that offer was, she was still too angry to even consider it. "Tom Paris, get out of my bed now," she insisted.

This time, his eyes opened and stayed open, fixing her with a confused expression. "What did I do?" he asked, slightly annoyed.

She raised her arms in exasperation. "I have no idea," she snapped at him. "Which is the problem. Last night, we got in an argument at Sandrine's, and I stormed out and came back to my quarters. Alone."

He sat up in bed, now looking fully awake but also fully confused. "What are you taking about?" he asked slowly. "Last night, we had dinner here in your quarters, and then we worked on our respective department reports, and went to bed. We haven't been to Sandrine's in months." A thoughtful expression took up residence on his face. "B'E," he said slowly, "what's today's stardate?"

She looked at him for a moment, trying to decide if he was serious and trying to decide what to make of the truncation of her name. "51150," she replied.

His look of confusion deepened. "Huh," he said slowly. "That's today's date, but we obviously remember two different yesterdays." In one fluid motion, he swung his legs over the edge of the bed and crossed to the closet. Torres felt herself flush as she realized that she was admiring his graceful movements and smooth lines of his body, clad only in a pair of black boxer shorts. He pressed the closet's control panel, and the doors slid apart to reveal the closet essentially as she remembered, except for the addition of one red-shouldered uniform and some shirts and slacks that were far too large for her. Staring at the offending garments in her closet, she didn't notice Tom remove one of her uniforms from the closet and toss it at her.

"What the hell?" she asked angrily after she regained her composure.

"Get dressed," he replied, glancing only briefly in her direction. "We're going to Sickbay. One of us obviously needs some sort of medical attention."

"And you think it's me?" she stated, still angry.

He turned to look at her and didn't say anything for a moment. "Judging from your reaction at the sight of your own closet, yes," he said flatly before his expression softened. "Listen, B'E, whatever's going on, we'll get to the bottom of it and get it through it. Everything's going to be fine." He gave her his best disarming grin as he headed for the bathroom. B'Elanna could only stare at him in wonder; no matter what happened in Sickbay, it was going to be an interesting day.

"Hmm," the Doctor murmured as he ran the tricorder wand over B'Elanna Torres. "Hmm," he repeated, studying the readings for a moment before tapping the instrument slightly.

"What is it?" Torres snapped at him. "And tapping the damned thing isn't going to change anything. It's a tricorder."

He looked at her disapprovingly over his tricorder. "In efforts to improve the bedside manner that you so often claim is lacking, I have done some research in how humans perceive the accuracy of the readings during a medical exam. For example, in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, a temperature was not believed to be accurate by the patient unless they witnessed the physician shake the thermometer slightly."

"Doc, that was in the days of mercury thermometers," Tom Paris objected with a roll of his eyes. "Now tell us, what's going on?"

The Emergency Medical Hologram sighed deeply, clearly feeling put out. "Well, for probably the first time since I have been activated, a medical scan of Mr. Paris reveals nothing unexpected. As for Lt. Torres, however," he turned his attention to the half-Klingon engineer sitting in the biobed, "you appear to be in a state of quantum flux."

"A state of what?" Torres asked.

The EMH gave another exaggerated sigh. "I was programmed with several case studies from Starfleet Medical, including one of a Lt. Worf of the USS Enterprise-D. When exposed to a quantum fissure, the lieutenant was sent into a state of quantum flux, resulting in his shifting between quantum realities."

"So, what you're saying is that this isn't our B'Elanna?" Paris asked dubiously.

The Doctor nodded. "Yes, Mr. Paris, that is what I believe is going on. I will inform the captain." Without another word, he turned and headed for his office, leaving the two lieutenants alone in the main Sickbay.

B'Elanna found herself unable to look in Tom's direction, despite the intense feeling she had that he was staring at her. She was still trying to comprehend the Doctor's words, that she was some other reality—a reality in which she was obviously much closer to Lt. Thomas Eugene Paris.

"Hey," Tom said softly, sliding off his biobed to stand directly in front of her. She turned her head slightly downward, still not able to meet his gaze. For some reason, just the knowledge that there was a B'Elanna Torres out there who had gotten over her insecurities about Tom Paris was enough to leave her unhinged. "Hey," Tom repeated, placing two fingers under her chin and pushing it up, forcing her to look at him. "We'll figure this out," he said softly, giving her a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes. "Between the captain, Doc, the best engineer in the Fleet, Harry, and me, we'll get you back to where you should be."

She nodded slightly, forcing back the sudden urge to break down into tears. "I know, Tom," she said softly. She gave him a weak smile. "And, for what it's worth, I'm sorry I yelled at you this morning."

This time his grin was sincere, causing his blue eyes to shine mischievously. "Believe me, it's not the first time that's happened," he joked. His expression turned into one of tenderness and almost protectiveness, and he leaned down slightly. For a second, Torres thought he might kiss her, and stiffened slightly. It wasn't that she was opposed to that thought; of all the things that happened to her on Sakari, most were a bit hazy, almost more of a dream than a memory, but she could remember those kisses very well, from the light ones that sent shivers from her lips to the ends of her toes, to the deeper ones that pretty much stopped her head from working at all. She was just worried that if he kissed her now, she would lose what remaining composure she had left, and she didn't want to do that.

At the last second, he seemed to remember that she wasn't his B'Elanna, a redirected his lips from millimeters in front of hers to her forehead, dropping a light kiss over her ridges. She was slightly surprised to find herself disappointed at that.

A cleared throat from the doors of Sickbay caused both to look up toward the sound. Tom blushed slightly and took a step back from Torres' biobed when he saw the captain standing there. "Captain," he greeted with a nod.

"Tom," she replied. "The Doctor summoned me, but he wouldn't discuss why over an open comm line. Would you care to enlighten me?"

Torres opened her mouth to respond, but the EMH beat her to it. "Captain," he said, stepping out of his office. "Thank you for coming down here so quickly. Lieutenants Paris and Torres came in this morning, and I found this when I was scanning Lt. Torres," he said, indicating the biomonitor on the Sickbay wall.

Captain Janeway studied the readings for a few seconds before shaking her head slightly. "I'm sorry, Doctor, but I'm not quite sure what I'm looking at."

"Perhaps it would be clearer if I explained," the Doctor replied. He tapped a few controls. "This is the quantum state of Mr. Paris, and everything else on this ship. This is the readings from Ms. Torres."

"They don't match," Janeway said flatly.

"Exactly," the EMH replied proudly. "It appears that this Lt. Torres is not the Lt. Torres we had yesterday."

Captain Janeway turned to Lt. Torres in surprise. "Not the same Lt. Torres?" she repeated before turning back to the Doctor. "I know a similar thing happened to Lt. Worf on the Enterprise as a result of exposure to a quantum fissure and a subspace differential pulse."

"Yes, I have reviewed that incident before you came in. I was about to question Lt. Torres about any potential exposures to such phenomenon, but I remembered that as an astrophysicist, you would have a better handle on such things than I, and decided to hold off such questions for when you arrived."

The holographic physician and captain both turned expectantly to the chief engineer, who cleared her throat slightly, uncomfortable with the attention. "Nothing like that happened, Captain," she said, sounding as confused as she felt. "Everything had been, well, routine lately. As routine as it ever is, that is."

Janeway smiled slightly at that. "Well, why don't you explain what did happen?"

Torres shook her head slightly, trying to organize her thoughts. "Last night, I was in my quarters working on my reports when Tom asked if I would meet him and Harry in Sandrine's for a game of pool. When I arrived, Tom was there, and Harry wasn't, and I told Tom—," she stopped when she realized that her voice was getting louder and faster as she explained, and flushed slightly. "To make a long story short, we started arguing, and I left the holodeck and went back to my quarters, finished my reports, and went to bed. Alone. But then when I woke up this morning, I was still in my quarters, but I, um, wasn't alone anymore." She risked a glance over at Paris to find him blushing bright red. Looking back at the captain, she saw that she was wearing a very amused expression her face, her eyes going between her chief engineer and her helmsman. "We realized something was wrong and came here."

"I see," Janeway replied, trying to maintain her composure, but looking as if she was going to start laughing at any moment. Straightening, she asked, "So, there's nothing you've done for the past few days that could explain how the quantum realities could have been shifted?"

Torres shook her head emphatically. "Nothing, Captain. Like I said, things have been routine. We haven't even had a major battle or anything in a while. We've actually been focusing primarily on running diagnostics of the EPS manifolds, just to make sure everything is in top condition. I've spent most of my duty shifts for the past week either at the upper workstation or in my office. I haven't been exposed to warp plasma, much less quantum fissures or subspace differential pulses." She thought for a second, then asked, "What about your Lt. Torres? Maybe that's where the problem came from."

Nobody said anything for a moment as they thought about it, but then Paris shook his head. "No, that's not it," he said slowly, his face reddening as everyone turned to him. "B'Elanna hadn't been doing anything out of the ordinary on this ship, either. She would have told me if she had."

Janeway nodded slowly. "I see," she said, still looking amused. "Well, I believe our first order of business should be to get all B'Elanna Torres' back to their proper realities. I'm going to call a staff meeting for half an hour from now, we can explain the situation then and hopefully between all of us, we'll figure out a way to make that happen. Oh, and B'Elanna?" She looked amused as she turned to the duplicate of her chief engineer, "when you explain in the meeting how exactly you discovered that you weren't in the right place, maybe you should remain a little vague on the details. There are certain aspects to your story that the senior staff is not entirely privy to." With a slight chuckle, she left Sickbay.

Once the captain's words sunk in, Torres turned to Paris, her face red and her expression mortified. "Did I just say more than I should have?"

"Well, yeah," he admitted. "I think Chakotay suspects, and so do a few other people, but the only ones who know for sure are Harry, the Doctor, and Kes. But don't worry about it," he said quickly, taking in her embarrassed expression. "It's a small ship, and I don't know if it's the same where you come from, but one thing that works very efficiently around here is the rumor mill. People are bound to find out sooner or later."

"The Doctor and Kes?" Torres asked, feeling almost nauseated.

Now he just looked amused. "Let's just say, after the first visits to Sickbay, the Doc gave me my own dermal regenerator and osteo-regenerator. Your counterpart is actually getting quite proficient at using them on me."

Realizing what he was saying, she closed her eyes in embarrassment. "Oh, Kahless," she muttered.

"Hey," he said softly, again rising from his biobed to stand in front of her. "I told my B'Elanna that I didn't mind the Klingon stuff, and I don't."

She looked up at him and smiled weakly. "The Tom on my Voyager said the same thing," she said softly. She rolled her eyes. "I didn't believe him at first, but then he really started in on it. He even made a bet on repairs, and when he won, he made me agree to some bat'leth training program on the holodeck. The petaQ," she muttered.

Paris grinned. "Just make sure the safeties are on," he said. "Come on, I believe we have a staff meeting to attend."


	2. Day 1 Afternoon

After the staff meeting, most of the senior staff made their way to the mess hall, where they could brainstorm their newest problem in relative comfort with plenty of food and coffee. Even knowing that these were different people than she had dealt with the day before, Lt. Torres found that they thought the same, acted the same, and talked the same as her friends on her Voyager. If nothing else, at least I know I'll fit in here, she thought to herself as she took a sip of coffee before turning back to Ensign Harry Kim to discuss some of his calculations.

Throughout the session, her gaze kept falling to one Lt. Tom Paris, looking and acting the same as the Tom Paris she knew from her Voyager. She would look up to see him making jokes, or pouring over a PADD, or pacing the long room as he tried to think, or, and most disconcerting, staring at her. It was an expression she had seen before, and she wished she knew what it meant; she couldn't even begin to decipher it.

After a few hours, they had come up with a few theories about how Torres had gotten there, but nothing that they could determine for sure to be the explanation. They did, however, think they had a way to send her back, and hopefully get their own Lt. B'Elanna Torres back to them in the process. "It's risky," Janeway warned the counterpart of her chief engineer. "We have no way of testing it, and no way of knowing if it's going to work until it's done."

"I understand, Captain," Torres said. She swept her hands to indicate the PADDs scattered around them, "but I don't think we have much of a choice, do we?"

"I guess not," Janeway replied, slightly amused. "We'll reconfigure the transporters in Sickbay, so the Doctor can keep a close watch on you during the procedure. It's going to take a few hours to make the changes, so you should consider yourself on a break until then."

"I should help, Captain," Torres protested.

Janeway shook her head. "It's nothing that Ensign Kim and the Doctor can't handle on their own. You should rest; we don't know how this is going to turn out, and we need you in top condition."

Figuring that arguing with this captain would be as effective as arguing with her own, Torres only nodded her assent. She took one last sip of her coffee and made a few suggestions to Kim before she turned to leave the mess hall for her own quarters. As the captain had said, there was no way of knowing what would happen if this didn't work—for all anyone knew, she might not survive the experience. The least she could do was record a personal log and make sure her last will and testament were up to date.

"B'Elanna, wait." Tom's quietly spoken words were more of a plea than a command, and Torres was tempted to brush him off and tell him she wanted to be alone, but changed her mind at the last minute and stopped to allow him to catch up to her. After all, wanting to be alone was what had caused her to go to bed angry with her Tom Paris last night in the first place, and if there was one thing she didn't want to do as her last act, it was get in a fight with Paris. For the first time, she considered the possibility that her life was too short for that.

"The captain gave me the rest of this duty shift off," Paris said as an explanation once they continued their trek down the corridor toward the turbolift. He gave her a quick grin. "After all, I just spent most of alpha and beta shifts in the mess hall."

"I'm sorry I was an inconvenience to you," Torres snapped, then instantly wished she could take the words back. Didn't she just decide she didn't want to fight with him?

"That's not what I meant," Paris said quietly.

"I know," Torres replied as she keyed in her access code to her quarters. She sighed. "I'm sorry. I'm just not used to—"

"It's been a bit of an odd day for all of us," he quietly interrupted. He pointed her toward her couch as he headed over to her replicator. "Do you want anything? My treat."

She raised her eyebrows at that. "Your treat? Since when did you have extra replicator rations?"

He grinned in reply. "I've been winning them from Harry. I figured that with such a demanding taskmaster, I should always have a few extras in case of an emergency."

"Emergency?" Torres asked as he handed her a raktajino. With a slight frown, she realized she hadn't asked for anything; he had just known what she wanted.

"You know, some fight, a missed date, me just being inconsiderate…" he trailed off, an amused expression on his face. "Believe it or not, I'm not perfect."

"I never thought you would be," she replied, finding herself grinning and teasing along with him. She cleared her throat slightly and looked down at her drink when she realized she held his gaze too long. "Um, I was just wondering, how long have we, I mean, you and her, been, um…" She didn't quite know how to finish that question.

He apparently understood what she was asking. He took a long sip of his coffee as he sat in the armchair. "Does Sakari IV mean anything to you?" he asked quietly. Her head shot up quickly, a surprised expression on her face. Did he mean…?

"I guess it does," he replied. He looked slightly uncomfortable. "I don't know how things happened for you, but here, we were on a mission to find some gallacite, and Vorik had transferred some sort of pon farr to you—her—this is too confusing! We were down in these caves, and there was an earthquake, and the two of us were separated from the rest of the away team. She was going in and out of delirium. At one point, she all but attacked me, and I admitted that I had been interested for a pretty long time, but I couldn't take advantage of her, not in that state. She was frustrated, but then pretty quickly after that lapsed into unconsciousness. During another lucid interval, we talked—we kept our distance, as far apart as possible in that cavern, but we talked—and she said it was no accident that we were trapped there together, that she had been intrigued by me as early as the rescue from the Ocampan tunnels—annoyed by me, but intrigued nonetheless—and had grown to respect me and care for me, and even started to love me. She said that this was what she had wanted for a long time and I shouldn't fight it. She practically begged me to let it happen, to let us happen. So I did, and we did. Afterwards, her head started to clear, and she was pretty horrified at first, but we were in there for another two days, and we just talked that whole time, about anything and everything and what it all meant. After Chakotay and Tuvok found us and got us back to the ship, she was taken to Sickbay, I was given some sort of lecture from Chakotay, and when we were both released, she came to my quarters, and that was that." B'Elanna stared down at her raktajino as he finished his story. It was all so similar to her own, but at the same time, so different. "What happened to you?" he asked gently.

She finally looked up at him and sighed quietly. "It started the same," she said. "There was Vorik and the gallacite and the caves, but you—him—my Tom, I mean, the Tom on my Voyager—kept resisting. Chakotay and Tuvok found us after a few hours, not a few days, and we were about to beam back up to Voyager, but Vorik had disabled communications with the ship and taken a shuttle down the surface. Well, things had pretty much gotten to a crucial point, and Tuvok all but ordered Tom to 'assist me', but Vorik interrupted, there was a fight, and everyone made it back to the ship in one piece, more or less. Ever since then," she shrugged one shoulder, "it's been like this strange game between me and Tom, and I haven't even figured out the rules, much less the point of the game."

"What do you think the point is?" he asked gently.

She gave a frustrated sigh. "I don't know!" she exclaimed as she practically jumped out of her seat and began pacing. "I mean, he's one of my best friends, but it's so much more than that. I just don't know if I could be with him. I don't know if I can trust him."

Paris just watched her for a few moments before he spoke, his voice low. "I can't imagine a version of me that would intentionally do anything to hurt any version of you," he said softly. "I may not be perfect, B'Elanna, but I'm not stupid. I know when I have a good thing, and I know to do everything in my power to keep from losing it." He sighed and closed his eyes for a moment, and Torres saw for the first time that this whole thing was just as hard, if not harder, for him as it was for her. "I don't deserve her, and I know that, but I will try every day of my life to be what she needs me to be."

"Wow," Torres said quietly. She didn't know what else to say.

"And unless your Tom Paris is a complete idiot, he feels the same way," Paris said with an intense look on his face. B'Elanna tried to meet his gaze, but dropped her eyes after a moment.

She opened her mouth to respond, but the comm line interrupted them. *Doctor to Lt. Torres. We're ready for you here.*

She turned to Paris and managed a weak smile. "Moment of truth, I guess."

"I guess," he replied, slightly uncomfortable at what he revealed. He looked like he didn't know what to do, whether he should stay in her quarters or walk with her to Sickbay. She decided to help him.

"Tom," she said. "Can you come with me? I mean, you don't have to, but," she paused, not knowing what to say. "It'll be nice to have someone there who cares."

He grinned at her, but it wasn't quite sincere. "Sure," he replied, placing his mug on her coffee table as he got up to follow her out of the quarters.

The trip from deck nine to deck five went quietly, neither knowing exactly what to say after all they had revealed to each other. Once they entered Sickbay, the Doctor immediately ambushed her, explaining the procedure in great detail, but she found she couldn't follow his words. Her gaze fixed on Tom, she found herself unable to look away.

Finally done with his explanations, the Doctor moved aside to prepare for the transport. "Tom," B'Elanna said softly, holding her hand out to him slightly.

He came forward without question, holding her tightly. "Good luck, Torres," he said quietly, his voice thick.

"Tom," she said again, looking him in the eye. "Don't be afraid of telling her what you told me. She needs to hear it—often. Don't let her forget."

He gave her a half-smile. "And don't be afraid of telling him what you told me," he said to her. They looked at each other for a moment, and then he bent down and very lightly brushed his lips against hers.

The last thing she felt before the tingle of the transport were those same shivers that went from her lips all the way to her toes.


	3. Day 2

Lt. B'Elanna Torres blinked slowly as she began to awaken. With a slight frown, she glanced down at her body, seeing herself clad in her familiar pajamas. She rolled over slightly, noticing that the other half the bed was empty. She sighed deeply in contentment, but couldn't help but feel a little disappointed. Just a dream, Torres, she mocked to herself. That certainly made more sense than being trapped in a state of quantum flux, moving from one reality to another. Still, she couldn't help but feel a sense of loss at the sight of the empty bed. Just a dream.

Even though she wasn't on duty until Beta shift, she got out of bed, and after a quick sonic shower and tossing on the first clothes she came across—just a simple shirt and pants she sometimes wore when she was off-duty—she made her way to the mess hall for some breakfast.

"Good morning, B'Elanna," Neelix said cheerfully as she skeptically eyed the breakfast selections in front of her.

"Morning, Neelix," she replied absently. "Um, I think I'll just have some fruit and coffee."

"Coming right up," he said, just as cheerful. "I must admit, I was a bit surprised to see you here this morning. Since you've been on Beta shift the past two weeks, I think I've only seen you for breakfast twice."

She shrugged. "Just woke up in time, I guess. Thanks," she said, taking her tray and finding a seat. It was her lucky morning; Ensign Harry Kim was sitting alone, carefully studying a PADD as he ate.

"Morning, Starfleet," she said, sliding into the chair across from him.

He looked up in surprise. "Hey, Maquis," he replied. "Wasn't expecting to see you this morning."

She made a face. "You're not the first person to say that."

He chuckled. "Well, you don't exactly have a reputation as a morning person," he teased. "Any plans for the day?"

"No, not really," she replied, taking a sip of her coffee. "I have some reports to finish before going on duty, but that's about it. Hey," she said as he took a bite of—whatever it was that he was eating. "Do you know what Tom's up to today?"

He just about dropped his fork in surprise and began coughing loudly. "What?" he managed between coughs.

She frowned. "Tom Paris? Tall, blond, pilot? Perhaps you've met him?"

He looked at her, concerned. "B'Elanna," he said quietly, leaning forward. "Are you feeling okay?"

Her frown deepened. "Why?" she asked suspiciously.

"Because," he said, looking almost ill, "Tom died more than a year ago, after the warp ten thing. Hey!" he exclaimed as she quickly got up from the table and headed toward the mess hall doors. "Where are you going?"

"Sickbay," she replied grimly. Guess it wasn't a dream after all.

"Ah, Lieutenant, Ensign," the Doctor said cheerfully as Torres entered Sickbay. She spun in surprise; she hadn't realized that Harry had followed her out of the mess hall. He must have grabbed the next turbolift and hurried to catch up. "I wasn't expecting you in for my weekly diagnostic until Beta shift."

"I'm not here to examine you, Doctor," Torres retorted as she took a seat on a biobed. "I'm here to have you examine me."

He looked surprised at that; Torres wasn't his most frequent quest in Sickbay, and never came in unless her life depended on it. "Very well," he replied slowly. "What are your symptoms?"

"I'm in a state of quantum flux," she replied flatly. At his confused expression, she sighed and explained. "Yesterday, I woke up, and things were slightly… off. So we went to Sickbay, and you—the Doctor—said that I was showing signs of quantum flux, that I was not in the right quantum reality. We thought we had solved the problem, but then this morning…" she trailed off and shrugged. "This isn't my Voyager," she finished.

"Who is this 'we' who went to Sickbay?" the Doctor asked conversationally as he began scanning.

She sighed. "Tom Paris and myself," she said reluctantly.

The Doctor fixed her with an astonished expression. "Lieutenant," he said slowly, "Lt. Paris has been deceased for a year."

"I know that," she snapped. She took a deep breath to try to calm herself. "Harry told me that. That's why I came here. Obviously, our attempts yesterday to get me in the right reality didn't work."

"Hmm," he murmured, then tapped the tricorder slightly. She gave an exasperated sigh, but didn't elaborate when he raised his eyebrow questioningly. If every Doctor was going through this 'shake the instrument' stage, it was going to be a long process getting back home. "Well, Lieutenant, it appears your self-diagnosis was correct. You do not appear to belong to this Voyager."

Torres sighed and rubbed her temples; she could feel a headache coming on. "Torres to Janeway," she said, tapping her combadge. "I think you better come down to Sickbay."

*Is something wrong with the Doctor?* the captain's voice asked.

Torres sighed again. "No, Captain," she replied. "There's something wrong with me."

For the second time in two days, Torres found herself explaining the situation to Captain Janeway. At least this time, she had the benefit of the hours that she had spent in the mess hall with the last group of senior officers, and she quickly found that she had been paying better attention to the Doctor's explanations of his "treatments" than she previously thought. The only problem was, they didn't know where they had gone wrong.

After some careful analysis of the data, they believed they had a solution, and Torres and Janeway left Kim and the Doctor to do the necessary modifications to the Sickbay transporters. B'Elanna had something else she needed to do.

"Computer," she said as she stepped into her quarters. "Play back personal logs of B'Elanna Torres, beginning at Stardate 49372.1." She ordered herself a mug of raktajino and collapsed onto her couch as she heard her own voice fill her quarters, recalling the events that led up to and followed the warp ten experiments and this Tom Paris' demise. To her surprise, she felt her eyes fill with tears as she heard the counterpart of her former self talk about the memorial service and the feelings of the crew. That B'Elanna had remained stoic throughout the service, but had to leave early before anyone could see her break down. Apparently, the B'Elanna who belonged on that Voyager was no better at expressing herself than the one who found herself stranded there.

Feeling a heavy ache in her chest, Torres got up from the couch to recycle the coffee mug. She watched the cup dissolve into molecules in the replicator, but didn't move to return to her seat. She closed her eyes for a moment, resting her forehead against the bulkhead. The day before, she had been sitting in identical quarters, talking with Tom about relationships. The day before that, she had been fighting with a different Tom about the same thing. Now, she was listening to herself express regret at never getting a chance for that to happen.

"Damn it all, anyway," she muttered quietly to herself. She angrily wiped away the tears that had escaped from her eyes as she straightened and pulled away from the wall.

*Sickbay to Torres,* the Doctor's voice called out. *We're ready to proceed.*

"Understood," she replied, hoping her voice didn't sound as shaky to him as it did to her. "I'll be right there."

This time, she sat alone on the biobed as the Doctor made his final arrangements. As she felt the transporter take her away, she couldn't help but feel that no matter where she ended up the next day, it couldn't be any worse than the loneliness she felt at that moment.


	4. Day 3

B'Elanna Torres felt the warm body pressed against her back as she started to wake up. She took a deep breath, and smiled contentedly at the familiar musky scent. "Tom," she murmured, settling herself closer to him. He murmured something in response, tightening his hold around her waist.

"Oh, damn it!" she exclaimed quietly a moment later, realizing just how wrong the situation was. Once again, she was in her quarters, with Tom Paris in her bed… With a start, she realized that it wasn't her bed, nor was it her quarters. The sheets didn't have the feel of Starfleet regulation sheets, the bed seemed wider and a bit softer, and if she wasn't mistaken, there was sunlight streaming in from a viewport that she didn't have. No, she mentally corrected. Not a viewport. A window.

This time, she was quiet as she got out of bed, careful not to disturb Tom. Looking around the room, she realized that her assessment was right—it wasn't her quarters, and there was sunlight coming in from the window. A colony of some sort, was her conclusion. The only question was, where?

She silently left the bedroom to investigate the rest of the house, which didn't take long. In the same hallway as the bedroom was a quest bedroom (why a quest bedroom was needed on a colony where everyone would have a house was beyond her), a spare bathroom, and what appeared to be an office. At the end of the hallway was a living room, where she saw items that she recognized from both her quarters and Paris', as well as a kitchen and dining room. Hope Tom does the cooking, she mused, thinking of her few botched attempts at using anything other than a replicator to make food. She practically jumped back as she realized the implications of her and Paris living together, and realized just as quickly that that didn't bother her as much as she thought it should.

No good thinking about that, she thought resolutely. After all, it wasn't as if she was going to be staying long.

She ordered a mug of coffee from the replicator and headed for the office. This, at least, was one room that was undeniably hers, from the organized clutter to the decorations to the PADDs filled with schematics lying around. She took a seat in front of the computer monitor, but then realized she didn't know where to start. She knew she was in the wrong place, but without the exact quantum frequency, she couldn't begin to calculate how wrong or how she been sent there by mistake. Obviously, whatever problems they had with the transports after the first try hadn't been corrected the second time around.

Even as she tried to concentrate on the problem at hand, she found her mind drifting to the colony: where was it, how had it started, why had they left Voyager? Was it destroyed? Did they run out of fuel? The more the thought about it, the more wild the theories became. "Computer," she ordered quietly, "display personal logs for B'Elanna Torres, beginning with the first log recorded. Display in typed format." Immediately, a long list of log entries appeared, some short, some rather lengthy. She scrolled through them quickly, looking for the first thing that appeared out of the ordinary. The first year was the same as she remembered, as was the second. Whatever change had produced this reality must have been a recent one.

Her entry after the events on Sakari IV was very long, just as it had been in her reality. A quick scan through the words revealed that everything happened as she remembered. It wasn't long after that that things began to look different.

It was less than a month later that they encountered the Borg. Her eyes widened as she read the words—they were lucky to avoid being destroyed. They barely managed to limp away, the ship hardly intact, the captain dead. Their scans revealed even more Borg activity ahead; they were at the edge of Borg space. Not seeing a way through them or around them, Chakotay had made the hard choice. They found a relatively isolated, out-of-the-way M class planet, and set down what was left of the ship. As it turned out, the damage was more extensive than any had previously realized. Now that she was down, Voyager would not go up again, barring a miracle. The crew of the ship had just become colonists.

"Hey," Tom's amused voice said from the door. "Back to work already?"

She turned quickly to see him leaning against the doorway, a smirk on his face and a tee-shirt and boxer shorts on his body. "Actually, I'm just looking through some of my old personal logs," she replied after she found her voice, trying to sound casual.

He smirked again. "See anything interesting?" he asked as crossed the small room in two strides, leaning over her chair to read the monitor. "Ah, reading about starting the colony," he said, his voice still annoying light. If he had any regrets about having to land the ship, he hid them well. "I'm going to make some breakfast. You want anything?"

"Depends on what you're making," she replied, finding herself smiling slightly.

He grinned down at her. "Let me guess—pancakes?" On some level, the thought that he knew her well enough to know her favorite breakfast pleased her to no end. Remain objective, she scolded herself. You're not a love-sick teenager, remember? Her silence didn't seem to bother Tom at all as he dropped a kiss on the top of her head before leaving the office for the kitchen.

Her curiosity about the colonization satisfied, she turned back to the problem at hand: getting her home to her Voyager. Reconstructing charts, diagrams, and equations from memory, she soon found herself so immersed in the data that she didn't hear Tom call out to tell her that the pancakes were ready.

"Ah, just as I thought," he commented from the doorway. "Back to work."

She jumped in surprise at his voice. "Kahless, Tom! You startled me."

He chuckled. "I've been calling your name for a few minutes. Breakfast's ready. I would have brought it in, but then you'd just yell at me for getting maple syrup all over your things." Without waiting for a response, he walked over to where she was seated and placed his hands on her shoulders, massaging them gently for a few seconds as he glanced at the display. "Quantum fields?" he asked in disbelief. "Since when was quantum physics your thing? And why?"

"It's nothing, Tom. Don't worry about it. Let's go eat." She tried to get up, but his hands on her shoulders stopped her.

"No, it's not nothing," he said slowly. "You're an engineer—hard math, hard rules, real-world environment. This is physics, and theoretical physics at that. This is Harry's department, or maybe even mine," he had been an astrophysics major at the Academy, "but not yours. What has you so interested in quantum fields all of a sudden?"

She sighed, reaching for a larger data PADD and transferring her work to it. "Let's discuss it over breakfast. It'll be better if you're sitting down."

"I don't like it." B'Elanna Torres didn't need to turn around to know the concerned, disapproving gaze on Tom Paris' face.

"You don't have to like it," she replied, her eyes not moving from the sight of the sun setting over the mountains. She wasn't one for getting caught up in the beauty of a natural event such as a sunset, but this one was exceptional. "It's my decision. Besides, it's not dangerous, just… inexact." She said that word with a slight bit of amusement and an equal part annoyance. After two unsuccessful tries with the transporter, the pessimistic part of her was starting to believe that she would be spending the rest of her life living a day at a time of other people's lives.

"It wasn't dangerous before, when you were on Voyager, but you've been spending the last three weeks just trying to get the transporters operational here, much less getting them to send you across a quantum fissure."

She knew he was right, but she wasn't going to give him the satisfaction of saying that out loud. "Don't you think I have an obligation to try?" she asked quietly, finally turning to look him in the eye. "Don't you think I should be doing everything in my power to get back to where I need to be, to get countless B'Elanna Torreses back to where they need to be?"

"Why are you so eager to get away?" he asked. "Look at what we have here. It's an amazing planet, surrounded by people who care about you, relatively safe from the Borg, Vidiians, Kazon, and any other aliens-of-the-week. Is this really so horrible?"

"No," she said quietly, her eyes again on the retreating sun. "No, it's not horrible at all. It's just not where I belong." She gave a short laugh. "It's like Captain Janeway and her endless quest to get the crew home. I have to get home."

"And look at what it did for her," Tom replied, just as soft. He sighed as he walked over, taking the seat next to her on the deck. "I just can't bear the thought of losing you."

She smiled slightly and placed her hand on his cheek. "You can't lose something you didn't have, Tom. If I stay, you've lost your B'Elanna forever. I'm doing this as much for her as I am for me."

He closed his eyes for a few seconds before opening them again, staring right into hers. He turned his head slightly to plant a kiss on her palm. "I know," he whispered. "It just took so long for us to happen, and now I'm afraid it's going to be over before we find out if it's going to work, if we're going to work."

She dropped her hand to her lap and turned away. She could tell him that everything was going to work and that he'll get his B'Elanna back, but she wasn't one for giving false hope. She didn't know if it was going to work, she didn't know if anyone would end up where they belong, and she didn't want to be the one to lie to him if it didn't.

Taking her silence for the stubbornness that it was, Paris sighed and began to stand from his chair. "Well, I guess we should get you to the transport station," he said reluctantly.

She put her hand on his arm to stop him. "Not so fast, Flyboy," she said with a small smile. "I want to watch this sunset first."


	5. Day 4

*The time is 0600. The time is 0600,* the computer's voice said in almost a sing-song tone in B'Elanna Torres' quarters. *You are scheduled to report to Main Engineering for Alpha shift at 0800. The time is 0600.*

"Alpha? Since when?" Torres muttered as she tossed aside her comforter.

*The time is-*.

"Computer, discontinue alarm," Torres ordered as she made her way to her bathroom. Almost as a second thought, she glanced back at her bed and sighed in relief at the realization it was empty. No longer believing that the strange occurrences of the past few days were a dream, she was just glad to be back where she should be.

Or not. That thought hit her suddenly while she was standing in the sonic shower. A few days ago, she thought she was in the right place, only to discover that Tom Paris had died during the warp ten experiment. What if this was the same thing, where things started out right, but then took an unexpected turn? And wasn't she supposed to be on Beta shift for another two weeks?

"Computer," she called out as she reached for a clean uniform. "What is my duty schedule?"

*Crewman B'Elanna Torres is on Alpha shift in Main Engineering,* the computer promptly replied.

"Crewman?" she said in disbelief. Clearly, something had gone wrong. She pulled off the rank insignia from her collar to double-check; sure enough, it had the single black stripe of an enlisted crewman, the same as many of her Maquis crewmates, the same that she had worn for the first few days after the crews had merged, before Captain Janeway had promoted her. "Computer, display personnel file for B'Elanna Torres."

All of the background information was the same—birth place and date, parents, primary and secondary school records, Academy records, the scant information they had on her from the Maquis. Her record since joining the Voyager crew, however, was quite different, from the moment she had broken Lt. Joe Carey's nose. This Captain Janeway had never given Torres' counterpart a chance to redeem herself; she had spent two weeks confined to quarters, then was returned to Engineering as an enlisted crewman. Apparently, Janeway had been considering her for second-in-command in Engineering, but changed her mind due to the volatile Klingon temper. She hadn't been on many away missions, because it appeared that no one could trust her to refrain from taking out her crewmates while on any. From the looks of it, everyone expected an angry half-Klingon, and that's what they had gotten. On a whim, she checked the ship's records, and noted with no small amount of delight that this Voyager hadn't gotten as far in their journey toward the Alpha quadrant as her Voyager. Guess I really am a better Chief Engineer than Carey, she thought with a smirk. As if she had ever doubted that would be the case.

Fortunately for Torres, she knew more than a few tricks around the computer system, making it look like she was running the diagnostics Lt. Carey had ordered while she was actually studying everything she could find in the computer about quantum fissures, which was quite a lot, most of which was over her head. The last Tom Paris was right; quantum physics wasn't her strong suit.

"Hey, Torres." Speak of the devil. She spun around quickly to face Lt. Tom Paris while trying in vain to conceal what she had been working on.

"Hey, Tom," she said, trying to keep her voice even. His eyebrows raised at the informal address, and she mentally kicked herself for the lapse. She didn't know how close of friends this Torres and Paris were, but on duty, a crewman shouldn't ever call a member of the senior staff by his first name. "What brings you down to Engineering?" she asked, trying to cover up.

"Helm report for the Chief," he said, briefly holding up a PADD. "We still on for tonight?"

"Tonight?" she asked, her mind moving at warp speeds to try to figure out what the two of them would be doing after shift. After what she had seen over the past few days, nothing would surprise her.

"You know, the hololab? The lessons in holoprogramming I've been giving you for the past year? Come on, Torres, don't tell me I'm so unimportant that you've just forgotten. Of course," he said, lowering his voice and giving her a slight leer, "if you'd rather, we can forget the lessons, maybe go for nice, quiet dinner on the holodeck?"

She rolled her eyes and turned away dismissively. "Right, Paris," she said dryly. "I'll see you in the hololab, 1600?"

He was about to agree, but grimaced slightly. "Better make it 1630," he said. "I started my shift a bit late this morning."

She rolled her eyes again, but didn't say anything. To the best of her knowledge, it had been awhile since Paris was late for his shift, but at one time, it was a regular occurrence. "Sure, Paris. 1630." He gave her one last grin before heading off to find Carey to turn in his report.

"You shouldn't encourage him like that." Torres jumped at the familiar voice, one that still managed to cause her blood to boil in anger. Figures, she thought bitterly, I don't have my rank or my position, but I do have Seska.

"Shove it," she muttered angrily to the Cardassian agent, still disguised as a Bajoran. Ignoring the astonished look on Seska's face, she stalked away from the workstation.

Lt. Tom Paris arrived in the hololab five minutes early to find Crewman B'Elanna Torres already there and entering something at the workstation. "Well, I see my lectures on promptness have paid off," he joked.

Torres glanced up at him and rolled her eyes. "Lectures on being prompt? From you?" she asked with a snort. "Right."

"That hurts, Torres," he said with a mock pout, holding his hands over his heart. She continued to ignore him, so after a minute he said, "Right. Anyway, I figured today we'd work on—"

"I'm not interested in that, Paris," Torres said, cutting him off. "I have a problem for you."

"You are a problem for me," he replied with a wide grin. She snorted, but didn't say anything. He sighed in resignation. "Okay, what is it?"

She moved aside to allow him to see what she had been working on. "Quantum theory?" he asked in disbelief. "Why? And why me?"

"You were an astrophysics major at the Academy," she replied. He raised his eyebrows; apparently this Tom Paris had never told this B'Elanna Torres what he had studied at the Academy.

"Okay," he said slowly. "What's this about, anyway? Since when were you interested in theory?"

She looked down at the display, then up at him, holding his gaze. "Theoretically, every possible solution to every possible problem happens, somewhere, creating infinite quantum realities."

"Right, that's quantum theory 101," Paris said impatiently. "What does that have to do with anything?"

She sighed at his impatience. "What if I told you that in one of those realities, I'm the Chief Engineer of Voyager, you're the Chief Helmsman, and we're cruising along in the Delta quadrant closer to home than this Voyager, spending a lot of time together that has nothing to do with lessons in the hololab? You were Harry's best friend, Harry was practically my first friend on this ship, and although we couldn't stand each other at first, if either of us wanted to spend time with Harry, we had to put up with each other. Eventually, we learned to tolerate each other and even work together, and then we slowly started to spend more and more time together without Harry. A few months ago, we almost had sex on an away mission, and since then, I have no idea what's going on between us. Oh, and Seska's a Cardassian spy who went off and joined the Kazon. Don't worry, we killed her—after you managed to retake the ship after her Kazon friends invaded and stranded the rest of the crew on some desolate, prehistoric hellhole."

His eyes were wide by the time she finished her rambling, and he seemed to be at a loss for words. "Say something, Tom," she said impatiently.

"So, what you're saying…?" His voice trailed off, not knowing how to finish that. "This isn't theoretical, is it?"

"No," she said bluntly. She sighed. "Four days ago, everything that I just described had happened. The day after that, I woke up, and you were in my bed—which apparently wasn't supposed to be that unusual. Two days ago, Harry told me over breakfast that you were dead. Yesterday, we were on some planet where we set up a colony after the Borg nearly destroyed us, killing the captain and grounding the ship. Then today, I'm a crewman in Engineering, and apparently Seska's still on board." She gave an angry shrug. "I'm starting to get a little frustrated with this."

He took a deep breath and glanced down at the display before looking back at her. "I don't know what to think," he confessed. "I mean, all of this is just theoretical…"

She looked him right in the eyes, a look that said she wasn't backing down. "Every year, on the first day of summer, your father would give you a 'summer hair cut', and you were so embarrassed by it that you would never go without a hat until it grew back out. Your favorite food is pepperoni pizza, but when you've had a bad day, you like to eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches—it's your comfort food, or something like that. When you were at the Academy, you did a semester in Marseilles, France, and you spent most of your time in a bar called Sandrines. You've always loved to fly, but you also love to sail, and have a holoprogram of sailing on Lake Como. Still don't believe me?"

His mouth was hanging open slightly in surprise. "I told you all that?"

"And more," she said quietly.

He continued to stare at her. "Some of that, I've never told anybody. Like the haircuts."

She smiled thinly at the memory. "Let's just say, you were trying to make me feel better. It helped, a bit."

He glanced down at the display, then back at her. "This is… I don't know what this is." He gave her a small grin. "I never did think Carey was all that good as Chief Engineer." Turning back to the monitor, he straightened, staring at the numbers. "It's been a long time since I've done this level of physics," he warned. "But I'll try."

"Thanks," she said, giving him a grateful smile.

"Don't thank me yet," he muttered.

"I mean, thanks for believing me."

He glanced over quickly in surprise. "I wouldn't not believe you," he said sincerely before giving her a smirk. "I figured something had to be up when I started flirting with you in Engineering and you didn't deck me. You're much more mellow than the B'Elanna Torres we've all grown to fear and dread."

She tried to glare at him, but ended up laughing instead. "You're the first person I've ever met who has ever called me mellow," she said.

He grinned back at her. "If I had known it would make you laugh like that, I would have done it a long time ago." The comment, although said lightly, resonated with both of them, and they found themselves both unable to look away for a moment. Finally, Tom cleared his throat. "Let's get you back to where you belong."


	6. Day 5

It took Torres a few minutes after waking to place where she was. It was familiar, somehow, yet also distant. One thing that she knew for sure was that it wasn't her quarters on Voyager.

"Oh, dammit," she muttered angrily, finally realizing where she was—the Val Jean, Chakotay's Maquis fighter that in her reality had been destroyed fighting the Kazon almost three years before. She tried tapping her combadge, only to remember that they didn't have those in the Maquis. Instead, they used eighty-year-old Starfleet wrist communicators that malfunctioned as often as they worked.

"Torres to Chakotay," she said, holding her wrist near her mouth. No response; not a big surprise. With an angry sigh, she pulled on the large boots of her Maquis fatigues—she never thought she would have anything positive to say about Starfleet uniforms, but at least the boots were much more practical—and left her small berth.

"Chakotay, we have a problem," she declared, opening the door to his office/quarters without waiting to be invited. She raised her eyebrows when she spied the brunette 'Bajoran' in bed with him. "Actually, it looks like we have two."


	7. Day 6

Sunlight again. Torres groaned in disbelief that, once again, they had failed to get her back to where she needed to be. Of course, with Chakotay's ignorance in quantum physics and the Val Jean's less-than-optimal transporters, she wasn't terribly surprised.

As she swung her legs over the side of the bed, something heavy and hard on her ankle hit the metal bed frame, sending a reverberating clanging sound through the small space. Frowning, she looked down to see what it could be. An ankle bracelet? And a gray jumpsuit? "And I thought being on the Val Jean was bad," she muttered darkly.

One advantage that the Federation Penal Colony on Auckland, New Zealand had over the Val Jean, however, was regular meals that actually looked like meals. In fact, now that she thought about it, that was one advantage that prison had over Voyager, at least on days when replicator rations were low enough that there was no choice but risk whatever Neelix was serving.

"Hey, Torres," a familiar voice asked from behind her as she poked thoughtfully at her oatmeal. "You working on shuttle repairs again today?"

"Paris," she said in surprise as he took the seat across from her in the cafeteria. "What are you doing here?"

He gave her a quizzical look. "Same thing as you, Torres. Five to seven years for treason and crimes against the Federation. Or did you mean that in a more philosophical sense? I didn't really pay that much attention in my philosophy courses, but I believe Kant said—"

"Paris," she interrupted brusquely. "You talk too much."

He grinned in reply. "You're not the first woman to tell me that. Anyway, shuttles?"

It took her a minute to catch up to the conversation. She shook her head slowly. "Actually, I have a problem I can use your help with."

He raised his eyebrows in surprise. "Now, Torres," he drawled, a slight grin playing across his lips. "You know the rules about fraternization among inmates."

She glared briefly at him. Does any Tom Paris miss an opening for innuendo? she wondered. "Shove it, Paris," she snapped. "Do you want to know what it is, or are you really that eager to do pointless repairs on debilitated vessels?"

"You know how seriously I take my work, Torres," he replied sarcastically in that same drawl.

"Well, I need you to be just a little serious for this," she replied shortly. This Paris was just as talented at annoying her as the Paris on her Voyager had been when they first met.

His eyes narrowed at her tone. "Depends on what it is," he said, no longer joking around.

She took a deep breath, then leaned in slightly over the table. "How much quantum theory do you remember from the Academy?"

He frowned slightly. "Quantum theory? What good is that here?"

"Just answer the question."

"Fine, fine. No need to get all hostile," he replied defensively. "I remember some, but not all. I doubt I could recite theories, but I think I still know a few equations. Now you have to tell me what all of this is about."

She ignored his demand. "What do you know about quantum fissures?"

He frowned again. "In theory, they're openings between different realities. Torres. What the hell is all of this about? Since when did you care about anything theoretical or esoteric, anyway?"

She sighed. "The last time anything made any sense in the last few days, I was the Chief Engineer on Voyager."

"Voyager?" he asked, giving a short laugh. "You mean, the ship I was on when we captured you in the Badlands?"

Well, at least that part was still true. "Yeah," she replied. "Only, where I come from, both the Val Jean and Voyager were pulled into the Delta Quadrant by some entity known as the Caretaker. The Val Jean was destroyed, and instead of locking us in the brig for seventy years, Captain Janeway invited us to join her crew. She reinstated your rank, made Chakotay her first officer, and made me the Chief Engineer."

He laughed slightly. "Good story, Torres. You been taking the creative writing enrichment courses?"

She glared vehemently at him. "Fine," she snapped. "I'll do this without any help from you." She started to rise from the table.

"Hey," he said softly, putting his hand on her arm to stop her. Her eyes widened slightly at the touch. "Sit down. I'm sorry I made fun of you. It just…seems a little far-fetched, that's all."

She softened slightly, taking her seat again. "Believe me," she said, her voice just as low as his had been, "to me, the idea of being in prison back on Earth seems a little far-fetched."

"Hey, can I ask you a question?" They had surreptitiously worked through the calculations earlier that day, although neither Paris nor Torres could find any problems with the previous work. Both deciding that getting back to any reality where they had decent equipment and people around who would believe the story as more important than accuracy, they were now making the necessary modifications to the transporter systems. Rather, Torres was making the modifications, and Paris was standing guard.

"I'm a little busy right now, Paris," Torres replied mildly.

He snorted. "I know for a fact that you can do two things at once. Hell, you're so good at multi-tasking, you make the rest of us look bad!"

She sighed. "What is it?" she asked, resignation in her voice.

He paused for a second. "Why me?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, why did you ask for my help?"

She glanced up at him for a second before getting back to her work. "You know more about quantum theory than I do," she said simply.

He snorted at the explanation. "Right. You've been doing this for almost a week; by now, you probably know enough to write a paper on the subject. Why did you ask me, anyway? We work together occasionally on shuttle repairs, but it's not like we're best friends or anything. I didn't even think you could stand being around me!"

She grunted, disconnecting another relay as she tried to think of how to answer his question. "I knew you would believe me," she finally said.

He stared at her for a moment, but she was too busy to care or even notice. "There's something going on between you and me in your reality, isn't there?"

She glanced up in surprise, but his expression was one of curiosity, not boasting. "I don't know," she muttered, turning back to her work. "Sometimes there is, sometimes you frustrate me so much I want to toss you out of the airlock without an environmental suit." She paused for a moment before continuing. "But I always know I can count on you to be a friend."

They stared at each other for a minute before he broke the silence. "I'm glad," he said quietly. A sudden noise from the corridor made them both jump, breaking the reverie. "You almost done with that?"

"Just about," she replied, connecting the last of the relays. "I think I've got it."

"Let's hope so," he said grimly. "Because I think it's time for the field test."

She nodded brusquely as she steeled herself for transport, wishing they at least had a transporter room instead of a jury-rigged relay in one of the supply closets. "You ready?" Paris asked quietly.

"Not much of a choice," she replied.

To her surprise, instead of moving away to the control panel, Paris leaned in closer in the confined space, pulling her to him. Before she could protest, his lips were on hers. She was initially caught off-guard, but before she could even process what was happening, found herself returning the kiss. "For luck," he said, slightly breathless as they separated. He held her gaze for a few more seconds before turning back to the controls. "Energizing."


	8. Day 7

B'Elanna Torres felt some sort of weight over her chest as she began to wake up, as if something she was wearing was heavier than it should have been. Forcing her eyes open, she found herself to be clad in what appeared to be leather and metal armor. Confused, she glanced quickly around the room, giving an exasperated sigh. She had never been on a Klingon Bird-of-Prey before, but she was pretty sure that this would be what it would look like. "This is starting to get a ridiculous," she muttered darkly, collapsing back down onto the thin cot. A Starfleet crewman, a Federation inmate, then a Klingon officer? "Obviously, I made a wrong turn at the gates to Grethor."


	9. Day 8 Morning

There was something different about her surroundings when B'Elanna Torres awoke. No, 'something different' wasn't the best way to describe it; everything had been 'something different' over the past several days. But this time, nothing seemed to fit together. It was the computer's voice that woke her, but the sunlight streaming in from a window told her that she wasn't on Voyager, or any other ship. However, the sheets had the familiar feel of Starfleet regulation sheets, which she wouldn't expect if she living planetside somewhere. Unless you're planetside on a Starfleet base, she told herself.

She told the computer to stop the alarm, and slowly sat up in bed, taking in details as she did so. Tank top and shorts as pajamas—makes sense, she told herself slowly. Glancing back at the bed, she gave another semi-satisfied nod at the emptiness; she was sleeping alone. The furniture seemed to be Starfleet issue, nothing terribly exciting. It was similar to the stuff she had in her quarters on Voyager, but yet slightly different. She frowned slightly at the décor—there were a few pieces of artwork and other random items that she wouldn't have selected. Maybe I'm just different here. From what she had been able to see of the last seven realities, she was different everywhere. It was just an issue of how different.

The light coming in from the window was slightly reddish. With a frown of concentration, she got out of bed and crossed the few steps to the window. Definitely red—maybe Mars? She didn't know why that was her first thought; there were several planets with a reddish hue. Even Kessik IV, where she had grown up, was slightly red-orange in color, although it was easy to tell from what she could see from the window that this wasn't Kessik IV.

With a heavy sigh, she turned to leave the bedroom, noticing that it was separated from the rest of the quarters—apartment?—by sliding doors, unlike the openness of her quarters on Voyager. Instead of opening to a hallway as she would expect in a house, these opened directly to the living room.

Once again, the living area was filled with items that she wouldn't pick out if she were the one doing the decorating, including some that almost looked like toys. Rolling her eyes slightly at the thought, she crossed to the kitchen nook and ordered a cup of coffee from the replicator.

Taking her cue from the morning she had woken up as a crewman, she brought up her personnel file on the computer as she sipped the coffee. Like before, everything from her early life was the same: parents, birth date and place, schools. She began mumbling the information aloud in a mocking tone, knowing all the information already. When she got to "Marital status: widowed," however, she stopped, her mouth hanging open in shock.

"Widowed?" she said in disbelief. That would mean that at one point, she was married. Knowing what the next line was, she willed herself to glance down at it, not quite sure if she was ready for the information it contained.

"Spouse: Thomas Eugene Paris, Lieutenant, missing in action on Stardate 48315.2 aboard the USS Voyager, presumed dead."

"That isn't possible," she said incredulously. She hadn't even met Tom until they had both been in the Delta quadrant. Well, she corrected, you hadn't met Tom, but obviously there was a B'Elanna Torres who met him long before that. "So," she muttered, not quite aware that she was talking out loud. "I met Tom, we got married, he never left Starfleet or went to prison, and he got sent on Voyager and I didn't." But where did that leave her?

Ignoring the rest of the personal information, she scrolled down to the professional bio and read the words out loud. "Graduated from Starfleet Academy with academic honors and physical honors in 2370, stationed at Utopia Planitia shipyards immediately following graduation, transferred to Starfleet Corps of Engineers in San Francisco on Stardate 48334," Right after Voyager disappeared, she mused, "Returned to Utopia Planitia on Stardate 49299, currently serving as project leader under Commander Adam Winters, Starfleet Research and Development." Hmm, she mused, never left Starfleet, cushy job on Mars working for R&D… not such a bad life this B'Elanna Torres has.

"Mommy?" a small voice said from behind her. She gasped in surprise, twisting around in her chair to see a small girl, no more than three years old, rubbing her eyes sleepily while clutching a grey teddy bear.

For a second, she didn't know how to respond. She stared blankly at the girl, trying to figure out what was going on. A daughter? she asked herself in disbelief. Not only had she been married, but this B'Elanna Torres had a daughter? "Morning," she finally said, trying to be friendly, even as she tried in vain to think of what the alternate B'Elanna would have named the girl, or at least how to find out. The personnel file! she realized triumphantly. The line after "spouse" would be "children".

"K'I've waffies fo' bweakfast?" It took Torres a minute to translate the girl's words: Can I have waffles for breakfast?

"Um, sure," she said, not really knowing what toddlers, especially quarter-Klingon toddlers, eat for breakfast. "How many?"

"Jus' one," she replied, pulling herself up a chair at the table. "Wit' sywup."

B'Elanna ordered the food on the replicator, setting it down in front of the girl before retaking her seat at the table, finding herself unable to look away in wonder. Her daughter - her counterpart's daughter - had brown curls, knotted by sleep, faint ridges gracing her forehead, and large, hazel-green eyes. Tom's eyes, Torres realized, feeling her stomach drop. Although the color was different, they were Tom's eyes. There was no denying that this little girl was the daughter of Tom Paris and B'Elanna Torres.

Remembering that she still didn't know her own daughter's name, she quickly turned back to the open personnel file, bringing up the biographical information. Sure enough, the line under "spouse" read, "Children: Isela Miral Paris." She quirked an eyebrow at that; Isela Torres was her grandmother, Miral was her mother. One didn't have much place in her life after the first five years, the other was more of an antagonist than anything else. Why would she give her daughter those names?

Her ruminations were cut short by the sudden chirping of her console. *Incoming message from Alicia Paris.*

Alicia Paris? The name was vaguely familiar to her, and it took her a moment to figure out why—Tom's mother. He had made some comment about her a few months before, which caught Torres off guard. It was probably the first time he had said something about either of his parents that wasn't overtly negative.

She pressed the key on the console to open the comm line. Before she could say anything as a greeting, the older woman started talking. "B'Elanna! I'm glad you're already up. I was worried about waking you. There's been a slight change of plans."

Torres forced herself to pay attention to the conversation, instead of just staring at the woman. There was no denying that this was Tom's mother; it was clear where he had gotten his looks and graceful manner, although her features were decidedly more feminine and fair, her shoulder-length hair the ash-silver color found only on those with hair already on the lighter end of the spectrum. "Okay," she said slowly. "What sort of change?"

Alicia rolled her eyes slightly. "The Taurus isn't going to be arriving until 10 o'clock, and Sydney has meetings at Starfleet Command until 1300. Owen figured that since she won't be free until then, he might as well get some work done in the morning. Anyway, to make a long story short, I need to stay around the house to watch over the kids and get everything ready. Would it be possible for you and Izzy to take the earlier shuttle from Mars? Nicki'll be free to meet up with you at the landing site at 1200." She said it in a rush, not unlike the way Tom would when trying to get through saying something that he was sure wouldn't get the best reaction, and Torres found herself smiling slightly at the thought.

Again forcing herself back to the issue at hand, she forced a smile. "I think we can manage that," she replied, even though she had no idea what she was agreeing to or why.

"Are you sure?" Alicia asked, her forehead creased with worry. "You only have an hour to get ready."

Torres resisted the urge to snort derisively; she has been known to make it from a deep sleep to Engineering fully dressed and awake within five minutes. "No problem," she assured her.

"Great," Alicia replied, relieved. "I tried telling Owen that his insistence to go to work on his own birthday was going to cause problems, but he, of course, didn't listen. Anyway, I should let you go get ready, and I'll see you and Izzy in about four hours."


	10. Day 8 Afternoon

An hour later, B'Elanna understood fully Alicia Paris' concerns about her ability to get ready for the earlier shuttle. Even though both had apparently packed for the overnight trip already, they were nowhere near ready to go. Never having been around toddlers, except occasionally seeing Naomi Wildman from the other side of the mess hall, B'Elanna had no idea how much was required to get one ready to go. By the time she had finished her conversation with Mrs. Paris, her counterpart's daughter had finished her breakfast, somehow managing to get more maple syrup on her than in her. After she had gotten her cleaned up, into an outfit that the toddler approved of, and her long curls detangled and arranged in some semblance of order, she barely had enough time to take a quick sonic shower and throw on a somewhat-casual outfit she found hanging in the closet. Without any time for breakfast, she replicated another mug of coffee to go, grabbed the overnight bag and kid, and made her way to the shuttle station.

During the three-hour ride from Mars to Earth, she read as much information about her counterpart's past as she could find and proceeded to learn more about the Paris family in that short trip than she had gotten out of Tom Paris in the last three years. She could have gotten much further in her research, however, if she didn't have to stop every few minutes to entertain an apparently overactive two-and-a-half-year-old. No doubt she's a Paris, B'Elanna thought wryly as she tried to think of another activity in response to Isela's complaints of being bored. She was surprised to find that that thought didn't freak her out as much as she thought it should. At any rate, by the time the shuttle landed in San Francisco, she found she had a whole new respect for Ensign Samantha Wildman's abilities to be both a Starfleet officer and single mother.

After glancing through the personnel files of the members of the Paris family, she had no trouble recognizing Dr. Nichole Paris Sanders, the younger of Tom's two older sisters. Even if she hadn't seen a picture, she would have figured the tall blond to be a relative of Tom's—they had the same eyes, although Nichole's were lighter; the same easy grace; and the same quirky grin. As if that weren't enough, however, Izzy's reactions to seeing her aunt would have been a dead giveaway.

"Aun' Nicki! Aun' Nicki!" the girl called out, reaching for the physician from her position in her "mother's" arms.

"Good to see you, too, bug," Dr. Sanders said with a laugh, accepting the toddler from the displaced engineer's arms. "How was your trip?"

"Too long," Torres answered for her with a slight roll of her eyes.

Sanders chuckled in agreement; she had four children of her own, including one younger than Izzy. "Well, we'll be at the house in just a few minutes, then we can deposit this little 'Paris-ite' with her cousins. Syd's still at her meetings at HQ—Dad'll come back with her when she's done—but Jens and the Wyland progeny are already there, probably driving Mom insane." She continued talking while they waiting in the cue for the transporter, but B'Elanna stopped listening, trying to sift through the information she had just read and hoping that she had it down well enough to pass muster, at least initially. After reading the personnel file on Admiral Owen Paris, she knew he would be the one she needed to talk to about her apparent problems finding where she belonged.

As predicted, they came across a flurry of activity when they arrived at the Paris house. Izzy immediately ran off to play with her cousins, and Nicki went to find her husband, leaving B'Elanna standing in the living room alone. She looked around the room in wonder, taking in the furniture, the decorations that appeared to be mostly relics from various worlds, the wall of family holos. So this is where Tom grew up, she mused. It appeared warm and friendly and comfortable, not at all the dream-dashing surroundings that she had imagined from the few stories Tom would tell.

"B'Elanna?" a questioning voice asked from the kitchen doorway. "You look lost."

She turned quickly to see the concerned look on Alicia Paris' face. "No, not lost," she said after a moment. She gave a weak smile. "Just a little tired."

The smile she got in return was full of sympathy. "I understand," the older woman said simply. "I'd tell you to go upstairs and take a nap, but Sydney and Owen should be back in less than an hour. If you want to come into the kitchen to chat after you drop off your bag, it's relatively quiet in here. Just no trying to talk engineering! You know I won't understand a word," she scolded lightly.

Torres smiled slightly before she headed up the stairs, filled with trepidation. She assumed she would be staying in Tom's old bedroom, being that she was his widow and all, but she had no idea which room that would be. Although hardly a mansion, the Paris house still had a fair number of rooms, and poking her head in each to try to determine if that was the right one would probably get her a few questions.

Fortunately, the first room at the top of the stairs turned out to be the right one. The room was undeniably Tom's—the decorations were tasteful, but consisted mostly of pieces that looked to come from a time period several centuries before. She placed her bag on the center of the bed and paused slightly, her fingertips against the quilt, wondering. How many times had her counterpart slept on that bed? How many of those times had been with Tom?

Feeling suddenly overwhelmed by the events of the morning and the implications of such a life, she all but collapsed on the bed, facing a window that provided a view of the rolling foothills of the Sierra Nevadas. With a trembling hand, she reached for the holos displayed on the nightstand. The first caused her lips to curl up in a slight smile: a little boy, probably around ten years old, leaning against the hull of a shuttlecraft, wearing a flight suit and that characteristic Tom Paris grin. Setting it aside, she turned her attention to the second, her eyes widening slightly. Both her and Tom were in dress uniforms, hers gold with the single gold pip of an ensign, he in red with the gold and black pips of a lieutenant, junior grade. Her hair was in a bun at the nape of her neck, with a few loose curls framing her face. She frowned slightly; she hadn't worn her hair that long since she was the Academy, where the added length was necessary to keep her hair tightly braided and out of her way while she competed on the track team. Taking in the glasses of champagne that both held, it hit her suddenly that she was looking at a picture from their wedding, which must have been shortly after she graduated from the Academy.

"B'Elanna?" This time, she didn't turn quickly at the sound of Alicia's voice, but took the time to return the holos to their rightful position on the table.

"Sorry," she said quietly, finally turning to face her counterpart's mother-in-law. "I was just…thinking."

Alicia's gaze immediately became sympathetic. "It still gets me, sometimes," she said after a few seconds pause. "There are moments that I think he's going to come through the front door, asking what we're going to have for dinner, or that you'll comm me out of the blue and say that it was all a misunderstanding, that he's not really dead, just…lost." Her voice suddenly became reflective. "It was all so sudden. He commed from DS9 the night before they left, right after he got off the comm with you. He wanted me to keep an eye on you while he was gone, reminding you to take it easy." She chuckled slightly. "I told him that I would do no such thing. What is it about pregnancy that makes men think that women are incapable of even thinking on their own?"

B'Elanna managed a tight smile of her own. "I don't know," she said softly.

Alicia gave another sad smile before changing the subject. "Syd and Owen just arrived, so I'm about to put the meat on the grill. Are you ready to come down?" B'Elanna was sure she was asking if she was composed enough to come down and socialize, but wisely held her tongue, only nodding in assent. Alicia gave her an encouraging smile and patted her lightly on the back as they left the bedroom. They were slight gestures, but they filled B'Elanna with a feeling she hadn't felt in so long, it took her a moment to identify it.

She felt loved.


	11. Day 8 Evening

It wasn't until they had finished eating and putting the younger children down for their naps that Torres got the opportunity to talk to Admiral Owen Paris alone. As luck would have it, he was the one to suggest they take a walk through the wooded land behind the house, probably to discuss some project that one was working on.

He barely had the chance to open his mouth to begin talking before B'Elanna cut him off. "We have a problem," she said bluntly.

He blinked a few times. "Is the new drive still giving you problems? I thought you had corrected for that with the—"

She shook her head brusquely. "No, nothing to do with work." She took a deep breath, unsure of how to proceed. "I don't belong here," she finally said in a rush.

He again blinked in surprise a few times, processing her words. "B'Elanna," he said slowly, "you know we've always thought of you as part of the family, even before you and Tom got married—"

Again, she shook her head. "No, that's not what I meant." She sighed deeply, then stopped walking to turn to face him. "Admiral, there's been something going on, some sort of quantum flux. I don't know what it is or what caused it, but for more than a week, I've been going from one reality to the next, and all of our attempts to get me where I belong have just sent me into a new reality, into a different B'Elanna Torres' life."

He raised his eyebrows at both her words and the rush she had said them in. "You haven't called me 'Admiral' off-duty since you were a third-year cadet."

She shook her head quickly. "I've never even _met_ you until today," she said. "In my reality, I'm the Chief Engineer aboard _Voyager_."

At the sound of the ship that he believed to have been his son's coffin, his expression changed into one of concern. "B'Elanna," he said gently, "I know _Voyager_ 's disappearance was especially hard on you, being that you were pregnant with Izzy and everything else that was going on, but I thought you stopped having the nightmares a year or so ago."

She had no idea what nightmares he was talking about, and sighed deeply at the realization that he wasn't believing what she was saying. _How different this Paris is than the one I'm used to_ , she mused. Not willing to give in, she shook her head again. "No, this isn't a dream, or a nightmare, or a fantasy. More than three years ago, _Voyager_ was sent to the Badlands to capture the _Val Jean_ and rescue Captain Janeway's chief of security, Lt. Tuvok. In my reality, and possibly yours, both ships were pulled into the Delta Quadrant by a dying entity who called himself the Caretaker. He was looking for a potential mate, and he was pulling entire ships from all over the galaxy to his array whenever his scans revealed a possible match. The _Val Jean_ was destroyed during a battle with the Kazon, who occupy the same area of space as the Caretaker and the Ocampa, the people he was trying to protect. Instead of throwing all the Maquis in the brig for the seventy-year journey home, Captain Janeway combined the two crews into one crew, one Starfleet crew, making Chakotay her first officer. We've been steadily making our way back to the Alpha Quadrant since then."

He took a few seconds to process her story. "But you weren't on _Voyager_ ," he pointed out.

"No," she said quietly. She didn't remind him that she was talking about alternate realities and that there was another version out there who could have been. "I was on the _Val Jean_." It took a moment, but then she saw the expression on Paris' face when he realized she had been Maquis. When he didn't say anything, she continued. "You can take me to Starfleet Medical, have them run whatever scans they need, but they're going to find that my quantum signature is different than everything else around us. I don't belong here. All I want is to get back to my reality, to my ship. I'm not a quantum physicist, and my best efforts haven't exactly yielded promising results. If I'm going to get back to where I belong, and get your B'Elanna back to you, I need your help."

He stared at her for a long minute before he turned slightly and started to walk again. Torres followed silently, waiting for him to respond. "I'll do everything in my power to help you, B'Elanna," he finally said. Looking down slightly, he added, "Deep down, I have this nagging voice in the back of my head telling me that what you're saying can't possibly be true, but you've never been anything but honest with me, not since that day during your Junior Survival Training when you nearly bit my head off." He turned to her and smiled at the memory, but that smile faded when he realized that the expression on her face meant that she had no idea what he was talking about. "How about this? We'll look over your research and calculations, and I'll see if I can figure out why it hasn't been working. Then tomorrow, we'll go into Starfleet Medical as well as the quantum physics labs and do full scans and see what we can find. Then, we're going to need to give you a full debriefing."

"Debriefing?" she asked with a frown. "What for?"

"Because," he said, not looking directly at her, "if your _Voyager_ was lost in the Delta Quadrant, there's a chance ours was as well. We need as much information as we can get if we can even hope to find ours." Finally looking her in the eye, he quietly added, "There's a two-and-a-half-year-old back at the house who has never seen her father. If there's a way we can change that, I'm going to try to find it."

True to his word, Owen Paris spent the rest of the afternoon and early evening going over calculations and schematics with his daughter-in-law's counterpart, trying to find what she had missed. "This is impressive work," he said, taking a break to stretch his legs and refill their coffee mugs.

She gave a low chuckle. "Believe me, most of it isn't mine. I've been doing all I can to just understand it all."

He smiled in reply. "If I didn't believe you fully before, I do now. I see a lot of Kathryn Janeway in this. And even more Tom." His voice lowered as he said his son's name, his eyes fixed out the window of his office. It was a few more moments before he spoke again. "Kathryn was a bright student, a promising pupil, but quantum theory wasn't her thing. She much preferred the 'get your hands dirty' side of science. And Tom," his voice trailed off again before continuing, "Tom was an astrophysics major because it made him a better pilot. That, and he already knew how to do most the calculations, so he was essentially learning half of the material his classmates were learning."

Torres smiled at his wry tone. She had no doubt that these Paris men were as agonistic toward each other as the ones in her reality, but these two had obviously learned to get past it. She opened her mouth to ask about it, but Nicki stuck her head in the door to Owen's office before she got the chance. "B'Elanna," she said, her tone slightly halting. "It's time for Izzy to go to bed, and she wants you to read her a story."

"Sure," she said softly. She glanced over at Admiral Paris, not quite sure of what to do.

"Go with _Green Eggs and Ham_ ," he said with a grin. "It's her favorite, even though I'm sure she has the entire story memorized."

She grinned back. She knew the story; Tom had read it to her while he was agonizing over what he would use to make a holodeck program to give Naomi Wildman for her last birthday. She had chuckled at the rhymes and ridiculous drawings on the PADD, and he said that anything that could get the Chief Engineer to laugh like that deserved to be chosen.

After reading the small girl the story, she sat and watched her counterpart's daughter twist into a comfortable position, her teddy bear tightly in her arms. "Mommy?" Izzy murmured.

"Yes, Izzy?" she asked. She still wasn't sure what she thought of the nickname, but apparently, it's what she liked to go by.

"I love you, Mommy," she said, her voice heavy with sleep.

B'Elanna reached down and touched the girl's cheek. "I love you, too, honey," she replied, bending down to kiss her lightly on the forehead.

She watched her sleep for a few more minutes before returning to Paris' office, finding him again engrossed in the calculations. "I think I figured it out," he said excitedly as she entered.

When she didn't say anything in reply, he glanced up to see her looking thoughtfully at one of the pictures on his shelf, one of her and Tom at some indeterminate point. They were both in civilian clothes, both smiling at the camera. He was standing behind her, his arms wrapped around her waist, and she was leaning back into his chest, her hair brushing past her shoulders, as long and curly as she wore it as a cadet. "How did this happen?" she asked, picking up the photo for a closer look.

"That was a week before Tom left for DS9 with _Voyager_ ," he replied. "You had just found out you were pregnant with Izzy, and you were both so excited about it that instead of telling me and Alicia over the comm, you took the shuttle from Mars to tell us in person. He was worried about you, which you hated. He was about to tell Captain Janeway to find someone else to pilot _Voyager_ into the Badlands, but you would have none of that. You told him that you weren't going to break, and that ship needed some hothead with his piloting skills, and it was only a three-week mission anyway." His voice grew thick at his last words, finding himself unable to look her in the eyes.

She gave a weak smile as she returned the picture where it belonged. It certainly _sounded_ like the Tom Paris she knew. "I mean," she finally said, "us meeting, getting married. How did that happen? In the life I know, Tom and I didn't meet until our ships were taken into the Delta Quadrant."

He thought about what to say for a minute. "It's a pretty long and complicated story," he said, "most of which I wasn't really privy to. But you met at the Academy, when he was a first classman and you were a plebe. He was your student company commander." _Well, that's certainly different_ , she thought. Her company commander during her first year at the Academy was a stern Vulcan woman who didn't take too well to Torres' frequent temper flares, feeling the need to write her up for each one. If she had someone with a sense of humor, someone capable of rolling with the punches, someone like Tom, maybe she wouldn't have left the Academy. _Apparently, she didn't_ , she reminded herself.

"But how did we… I mean, aren't relationships between plebes and leadership…?" she trailed off, not knowing if that was one of the things Admiral Paris didn't know about.

Well, apparently he did. He smiled at her. "Oh, believe me, there was no relationship between you as a plebe and Tom as your company commander, but despite how much you two fought, you somehow became friends, or something close enough to it. In fact, you were, in some roundabout way, the one who convinced Tom to take the posting as a test pilot, instead of on the _Exeter_. Honestly, part of me thinks he took it to keep himself closer to San Francisco, to wait for you to be open to the idea of a relationship with him." She flushed at those words; _her_ Tom was doing essentially the same thing, years later on a different side of the galaxy. "It took awhile, though," Paris continued. "In fact, it wasn't until after you left the hospital, after we returned from Junior Survival Training. Tom liked to joke that you were only with him as a way to get to spend time with me, something about us science types always sticking together." Although wary about what she had been doing in the hospital after a Survival Training course, she smiled briefly at the admiral's words; Tom said the same thing when Harry and she went off on one of their tangents, getting excited about something related to engineering. "You were married less than a month after you graduated from the Academy, and you both went to work at Utopia Planitia, him as a test pilot and you as a junior engineer."

"So different…" she murmured, trailing off.

"You and Tom aren't together?" he asked, slightly confused.

"No," she said, shaking her head slightly. "Life turned out quite different for both of us, and we both have a lot of baggage to deal with, but he's trying. He's really trying. And I think… I think I'm starting to fall in love with him. I just don't know if I should." She said the last part quietly, not sure why she was saying so much to a man she only knew from the stories of a jilted son.

"I won't pretend to know anything of what either of you has been through," he said. "And if things are so different, I won't pretend to know anything about my son's past or his actions, but I know _him_ , and I know that he would never do anything to intentionally hurt you. He's not like your father, B'Elanna, I know that. He may fight _with_ you, but he'll always fight _for_ you."

His words surprised her, and it showed on her face. "I guess that's true," she said slowly.

"I know it's true." He glanced down at the PADD with his corrected calculations, and turned it off. "It's getting late, and it's been a long day, and tomorrow's going to seem even longer. We should call it a night."

She nodded; it had been a long day, but she wasn't ready to go to bed just yet. "Do you think there's any more of that cake?" she asked. For some reason, a good scientific discussion—one that had little to do with quantum theory or alternate realities—was just what she needed at the moment.

He grinned, knowing what she was thinking. "I'm sure we can scrounge up something."


	12. Day 9 Morning and Afternoon

As promised, the next day was spent at Starfleet Headquarters, including scans at both Starfleet Medical and the Quantum Physics laboratories in the morning, and an extensive debriefing in the afternoon. She told them everything she knew, of her reality and the ones she had visited, trying to keep from getting frustrated at their repetitive questions, their disbelieving attitudes, and their general demeanor. By the time they declared that they knew all they needed to know, she was seconds away from physically lashing out.

Admiral Paris seemed to sense her frustration. "Let's go back to the house for dinner before the transfer," he suggested.

She shook her head. "I just want to get this over with as soon as possible," she said, sounding rude and not caring.

If there was one thing Tom must have gotten from his father, it was his stubborn streak. "Don't make me make it order, Lieutenant," he said in a warning tone. "You need the break."

She glared, but it wasn't her best effort, knowing he was right. "Fine," she conceded. "Quick dinner, then right back here to get this taken care of."

"Of course," he said smoothly.

As they approached the house, they heard the excited squeals from Izzy, who was playing in the front yard with her cousins. "Mommy!" she yelled, running toward them at full speed.

"Oomph," Torres said with a laugh as the girl collided into her at full force. She stooped down to pull her into her arms and squeezed her tightly. What was it about this girl she had just met that made her forget about all of her problems? "How was your day, Izzy?"

"I pwayed tag wit' Chwis and Dew and Steph'nie and Awex," she said excitedly. "And Gamma made san'wiches fo' wunch, and afte' my nap, we pwayed mo'."

"Sounds like a busy day," Torres replied with a laugh as they entered the house.

"There's just no tiring that one out," Alicia agreed from the kitchen. "How was _your_ day? Did you get everything figured out?"

"We think so," Owen said with a slight nod. He winked at his daughter-in-law's counterpart. "Guess we'll find out after the transfer, won't we?"

She gave a tight smile in reply as she took a seat at the table. She hoped it worked; she just wanted to get back to her ship, to her life. _And get Izzy's mother back to her_. And hopefully, with the information she had given them, get Izzy's father back someday, too.

As promised, they didn't stay long after dinner. B'Elanna gave Izzy another hug and a quick kiss, and then they were on their way back to Starfleet Headquarters. "You never told what was wrong with our calculations," she asked Owen, breaking the silence.

"Hmm? Oh, that. You were only accounting for your own quantum flux, not that of the infinite number of B'Elanna Torreses who might have been affected. It was a fairly simple correction, once I found it."

"We never even thought of that," Torres admitted. "So, you really think this is going to work?"

"I do," he said seriously.

She smiled gratefully. "Thank you."

"You're welcome," he replied. "But honestly, you and your friends had done most of the work already."

She shook her head slightly. "No, I mean, thank you for believing me, for helping me." She paused, then added. "And for taking me in, for making me feel like part of the family. It's been awhile since I felt like that."

"You _are_ a part of the family. Don't doubt that. If things between you and your Tom work out the same for you as they did here, don't doubt it from that Paris family, either."

"I won't," she said with a slight smile as they arrived at the Quantum Physics laboratory, where the transfer would take place.

"Well," he said once the machine was set and ready to go. "Good luck, and safe travels."

"Thank you," she said with a smile. "Will you do me a favor?"

"Sure. What is it?"

She paused, not sure how to say what she wanted to say. "Will you tell your B'Elanna how lucky she is?" She didn't know how to explain it; yes, that B'Elanna Torres had been separated from her husband and believed him to be dead, but she knew who she was and how she fit in. She had a family - a daughter, in-laws who loved her and cared for her, maybe even a mother she had been able to speak more than two words to without being frustrated - and a sense of belonging that the B'Elanna Torres standing there had never before experienced.

He looked surprised at the words, but then nodded. "I will," he said, "but I need you to do something for me. Can you tell Tom—tell him that no matter what happened between him and his father, that I still love him, and nothing will ever change that."

She doubted the Tom Paris she knew would believe that, but she nodded anyway. "I will," she promised. With nothing else to say, she stepped up to the device the physicists had constructed and squared her shoulders in determination. "Energize."


	13. Day 9 Evening

"Captain, I'm reading a sudden energy surge on deck nine," Ensign Harry Kim said with a frown. "Captain, it's coming from B'Elanna's quarters!"

"Energy surge?" Captain Kathryn Janeway asked with a frown. "What sort of energy surge?"

_*Torres to Janeway.*_

"Janeway here. B'Elanna, are you okay?"

There was a pause, and then: _*I'm not quite sure yet, Captain. Is this a Klingon ship or Maquis fighter?*_

Janeway frowned. "No…"

_*Are we stuck in the Delta Quadrant?*_

Realizing what Torres was asking, Janeway began to smile. "Yes," she confirmed.

_*Am I the Chief Engineer of the USS Voyager?*_

"Yes."

There was a pause, then: _*I don't have a husband or a kid, do I?*_

That time, Janeway _did_ laugh, but it was at the expression on her helmsman's face more than anything. "No, you don't, Lieutenant."

_*Thank Kahless. I might actually be in the right place. I'm going to report to Sickbay to confirm. Torres out.*_

Janeway was still chuckling as she turned to her first officer, who was grinning widely. "That's one report I'm looking forward to reading," Commander Chakotay said.

"You and me both, Commander."

Lt. B'Elanna Torres was just leaving Engineering when she saw Lt. Tom Paris stepping out of the lift. He raised his eyebrows at her. "I thought the captain gave you the shift off," he said lightly.

She flushed slightly, realizing she was caught. "She did," she confirmed. "I just wanted to check with Carey, make sure he hadn't broken anything in my absence."

"Your engines are just fine," he said with a grin. "So, what was it like?"

She made a face. "I'm just on my way back to my quarters to get started on my report now," she said. "It was… well, it was quite a wild ride."

His grin widened. "'Wild ride'? I think I'm rubbing off on you, Lieutenant."

"Sounds like something I should be worried about," she replied. After a pause, she quickly asked, "Do you want to come over for dinner tonight? My quarters?"

He looked like he was about to agree, but then groaned. "I'm on Beta shift. I'm not getting off until midnight."

"That's fine," she said. "I'll probably still be working on this report."

He shrugged. "Okay, if you're sure." She nodded, and he grinned. "Zero hundred in your quarters it is, then. I'll bring the wine." She was about to protest, knowing how it would look if anyone saw the ship's top pilot outside the Chief Engineer's office at midnight with a bottle of wine, but he had already moved out of earshot. With a sigh, she stepped into the turbolift.

"Deck nine."

Lt. B'Elanna Torres was curled up on her couch, making her revisions on her report of her events of the past week; she had already recorded a much longer, much more detailed version into her personal logs. To the outside observer, she was calm and relaxed, wearing casual pants and a tunic and looking as if she had given little thought to anything other than finishing that onerous Starfleet task before turning to the work she had missed while she was gone. In reality, she was anything but—ironically, she had tried on several outfits before settling on one that she decided looked casual enough. She tried to tell herself that this was just dinner, one of many that she had shared with Lt. Tom Paris over the past years, including several in either of their quarters. However, having seen and experienced what she had while visiting the different realities, she could no longer deny the budding relationship between the two officers.

She was just about finished when the announcer chime to her quarters rang. Ignoring the sudden fluttering in her stomachs, she called out for her visitor to come in.

Tom Paris, still dressed in uniform, entered just far enough to let her doors slide shut behind him, looking around briefly before his eyes settled on hers. "I thought you were bringing the wine," she said dryly.

He grinned. "I realized I didn't know what you would be serving, and I didn't want to bring the wrong thing. Besides, the rumor mill has just started to die down again, and I figured the Chief Helmsman carrying a bottle of wine to the Chief Engineer's quarters would be just what it needed to get going at warp ten again." She winced slightly at the words "warp ten", but didn't say anything as she rose and headed for the replicator. "So, what are we having, Chief?" Paris asked, still rooted to the same spot on her floor.

"I was thinking pepperoni pizza, if that meets with the approval of your gourmet palate," she said, a touch of teasing sarcasm in her voice.

"A woman after my own heart!" he said, his grin widening at her eye roll. "I daresay, Lieutenant, I really do think I'm rubbing off on you."

"I'm sure that's just what your ego needed," she commented as she punching in the commands on her replicator.

She didn't even realize that he had moved from right in front of her door until she could smell him standing right behind her. She closed her eyes for a second, quietly inhaling the distinctive, musky scent and forcing herself not to launch herself at him. "It's a good thing I didn't bring wine, then," he said, his voice little over a murmur, his hands gently trailing down her arms. "Beer goes much better with pizza than wine does." She wondered how he could make an innocent comment about beverage choices sound like innuendo.

She realized that that was another thing she could add to the contradictions that seemed to make up Thomas Eugene Paris; despite his love of pepperoni pizza, tomato soup, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and the like, he was practically a connoisseur of beers and wines, knowing exactly which vintage and year would match a given meal. Without a response to his comment, she removed the pizza from the replicator and turned to carry it to the table, him intentionally standing too close, forcing her to brush against him. She tried to ignore the tingle that that simple contact had caused, but she still found herself unable to meet his gaze as he brought over two bottles of beer and silently handed one to her.

"So, how was your tour of the various quantum realities?" he asked, breaking the silence as he reached forward for a slice of pizza, ignoring the plate and silverware she had provided.

Her eyebrows shot up in surprise, but she had to swallow her food before she could respond. "How did you know about that?" she asked.

He chuckled slightly. "Well, your questions when you came in gave some clues, but four days ago, one of your alternates appeared and explained the situation. In fact, she thinks the whole thing was her fault. Apparently, she was doing experiments on a new slipstream drive, and she believes she somehow opened a quantum fissure in the process."

"Slipstream?" Torres asked, her ordeal temporarily forgotten. "Did she say anything about it? Or leave schematics?"

His grin was wide as he reached for his beer. "Are you forgetting the fact that just experimenting with it sent you on a tour of alternate universes?"

She shrugged away his question. "A working slipstream drive… That could send us thousands of light years in seconds…" Her voice trailed off, her mind already running through the calculations.

"Anyway…" Paris said with a chuckle. "What was it like?"

"It was, well, confusing at first," she said with a slight frown as she thought about his question. "Waking up in someone else's life is not exactly an experience I'd recommend to anybody."

"How did you figure out that things weren't quite right?"

She felt the heat of the blood rushing to her face, and knew she was blushing brightly. No good telling him _that_ story. "Things were just slightly…off," she said evasively.

"Uh-huh," he replied, amused. "Were you able to figure out when some of these different realities branched off from ours?"

"The most recent was a few months ago," she said. "There were others that were much longer ago." She told him the stories of waking up on the _Val Jean_ and the Klingon ship, purposely omitting Auckland, and her voice trailing off before mentioning her last stop. Apparently, she looked a bit distracted, because the next thing that she realized was that Tom was saying her name. "What?" she asked.

"You looked a million light years away just now," he said.

"No, not a million," she replied. "Just a little over sixty thousand."

His eyes widened slightly. "You were on Earth?"

"Twice, actually," she said. "The first time, I got to see everything Auckland had to offer," he winced slightly at the mention of the Federation penal colony, "and the second time in San Francisco."

"Learn anything interesting?"

She debated for a moment if she should tell him about her visit to his family, then decided that after everything Admiral Paris had done for her, she owed it to him to pass his message along. "I was just thinking about something your father—well, your counterpart's father—said."

At the mention of his father, the carefully crafted mask fell quickly over Tom's features. "And how is the admiral?" he asked, managing to sound caustic and casual at the same time.

"He's fine," she said slowly. After a pause, she added, "He misses his son."

Paris snorted in reply. "If that isn't proof enough of your travel through alternate realities, I don't know what is." Annoyed and frustrated, he rose from his chair and paced briefly before stopping close to the doors. For a minute, B'Elanna thought he was going to leave, but he remained there, just on the inside of the door's sensor.

Not moving, B'Elanna watched him try to regain his composure for a few minutes before she got up, standing behind him, not sure if she should reach out or not. They stood there in silence for another few minutes before she decided she should just say it. "Tom," she began. "He said… He wanted me to tell you that he loves you, that nothing that either of you could have said in this reality would change that."

Tom took a deep breath and closed his eyes, trying to block out the sound's of the last words his father had said to him: _You're a disappointment, Thomas_. Not that he had disappointed his father, which after getting arrested for getting involved with the Maquis would be no surprise, but that he was a disappointment, as if that was as much a part of his identity as saying he was a pilot, or was human.

It was another minute or so before he gathered the strength to turn and face B'Elanna again. With a questioning look in her eyes, she gently placed her hand on his cheek. He just stood there for a few seconds, drinking in the comfort of that simple gesture, before he reached up and took her hand in his, squeezing it gently before dropping it. She continued to study him for a moment before he turned away, heading back for his seat. "Why were you visiting the admiral, anyway?" he asked, the mask again firmly in place.

She used the time it took her to return to her chair to decide how much to tell him. Figuring he would get the full story from her at some point, she took a deep breath and prepared herself to tell all of it. "Yesterday was his birthday," she began. Judging from the sudden look of guilt and surprise in his eyes, the date had slipped his memory. "And he wanted to see his granddaughter on his birthday." He had been taking a drink from his beer when she said that, and it took him a few seconds to process the words and the implications. Coughing, he barely managed to avoid spitting out the drink in surprise. "Yeah," Torres said wryly, "now you know how I felt when I found out."

"What…? How…?" That seemed to be as articulate as he could manage at the moment.

"Apparently, we're married in that reality," she said dryly.

For a minute, he didn't say anything, his eyes toward a far wall but not focused on anything. "You said he misses his son," he finally said.

She nodded slowly. "That Tom Paris was a test pilot," she said. "He was working at the Test Pilot Facility at Utopia Planitia, where that B'Elanna Torres was an engineer. There was no tour on the _Exeter_ , no Caldik Prime, neither of us had been in the Maquis. Three years ago, Captain Janeway needed a pilot who could navigate the plasma storms of the Badlands, and, well, everyone knows that Tom Paris is the best damn pilot there is." She said the last part with no small amount of sarcasm, causing both to smile wryly. "After all, it was only supposed to be a three-week mission."

"So that _Voyager_ disappeared, too."

"Disappeared or destroyed, yeah," she said softly. "Either way, they declared everyone on _Voyager_ dead a year ago, just like they probably did us. I told them everything about how we got pulled into the Delta Quadrant. Hopefully, the same thing happened to that _Voyager_. Maybe they'll be able to make contact someday, now that they know there's a reason to look." They were both thinking the same thing: they had no reason to assume that anybody was out looking for them. Although on some level, they had assumed that everyone back home would think that they had died, it seemed a little bit more real hearing that in another reality, they had been declared dead.

They continued to sit quietly for a few minutes before Tom smirked. "So, those versions of us had a daughter?"

She rolled her eyes at him, but couldn't help smiling slightly. "Yeah," she said softly. "She's a few months older than Naomi. She's adorable."

"I don't doubt it," Paris said, now fully grinning. "After all, her mother is absolutely beautiful."

She looked down at her table, unable to meet his eyes, aware that her face was turning red at the compliment that had flowed smoothly over his tongue. "She's a real handful, though," she finally said, her tone dry. "Takes after her father."

He burst out laughing. Still chuckling, he didn't say anything for a few minutes, imagining what their daughter would look like, picturing a toddler with B'Elanna's dark coloring and faint ridges. "What's her name?" he finally asked.

She looked surprised at the question. "Izzy," she said after a pause. She rolled her eyes slightly. "I think it must have been your sister who started calling her that, because I doubt any version of me would. It's actually Isela. That was my grandmother's name."

"Isela," he said slowly, trying it out. "Isela Paris. I like that." She glowered briefly at him, but didn't respond to his teasing grin.

Sensing her discomfort, he smoothly changed the subject, and they spent an indeterminate amount of time getting her caught up on the ship's gossip of the last week, laughing about who was flirting with whom and what Neelix's most recent meal most closely resembled.

At the same time, they both realized how much time had passed, surprised. Idly, B'Elanna realized that just lounging around her quarters, talking and teasing and flirting, was probably the most fun she had had in a long time. "I should probably get going," Paris finally said, sounding reluctant at the thought.

"Yeah," Torres replied. Neither moved for a moment, watching the other from across the coffee table. "Tom—" she began, at the same moment that he said, "B'Elanna—"

Both stopped, laughing slightly. "You first," she said.

He grinned. "I just wanted to say that I'm glad you're back." His smile faded, replaced by a more serious expression. "I was worried about you."

She stared at him for a moment, her head empty of all thought at the intense expression on his face. Suddenly, she could hear Admiral Paris again: _He may fight_ with _you, but he'll always fight_ for _you._

"I saw a sampling of quite a few lives, ways things could have gone different," she finally said, her voice quiet. "Some were better than others, obviously, but no matter the circumstances, the ones where you were there were always the easiest to handle. Thank you," she paused slightly. "Thank you for being there."

He leaned forward in his chair, placing his hand on her jaw and lightly tracing her lips with his thumb. For a second, she thought he was going to kiss her, and she knew that if he did, he wouldn't be leaving that night. Coming to the same conclusion and knowing that they weren't ready for that step, he lightly brushed his lips against her forehead. "I'm not going anywhere," he promised, his voice low. Smiling slightly, he amended, "Except to my quarters, while I'm still thinking straight." Removing his hand, he stood slowly, his eyes not leaving hers until he gave her another reassuring smile and turned toward the door. Before he was close enough for it to open, he turned back toward her. "Dinner tomorrow night?"

She was about to agree, but then realized that she hadn't been in Engineering for over a week, and shook her head ruefully. "I'm probably going to be pulling doubles for awhile to get caught up," she said, as if she needed the excuse to stay in Engineering past her designated shift. "Let me know when you take a break for 'lunch'," she added, referring to the meal in the middle of Beta shift, which was actually around 2000. "I might join you."

"Looking forward to it," he said, his smile wide. "Goodnight, Torres."

"Goodnight, Tom." As the doors slid closed behind him, she finally rose from the couch and headed toward the bathroom to get ready for bed. As she pulled the covers over her, she gave a contended sigh. It may not have been the perfect life, or even the best life she had recently experienced, but it was _her_ life.

And for the first time in a long time, she knew where it was going.

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally posted on FFN; I'm using it as my experiment to see how difficult it would be to move works from there to here.


End file.
